Artificial Intelligence is about a world dominated by smart machines, more intelligent than humans, becoming more powerful every day. But how will that AI power be used? Is AI a force for good or for evil? Will robots ever achieve full human consciousness, or "real" intelligence, or will they just remain smart machines?

Will Artificial Intelligence create massive unemployment, combined with Robotics? Will society become controlled by AI systems?

Here is the truth in a lengthy feature about Artificial Intelligence in the auto industry, health care AI, warfare AI, impact of AI on banking, investments, insurance, retail, surveillance and security, workplace and so on. This is based on keynotes on the future of Artificial Intelligence and related issues, across the world.

What happens when you combine Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things, Big Data and Cloud Computing, to the world of banking, telcos, mobile devices and personal computers?

The answer is the you get the biggest target for criminals that the world has ever seen - all waiting online to be attached and exploited in a billion different ways using little more than a couple of computers, owned by very smart geeks. Never in human history has it been possible for one person, sitting in a bedroom at home in a distant land, to create such havoc and chaos, to seize such power. So what do we do about it?

Cyber-crime will be one of the greatest threats to our world over the next 50 years, and far beyond, into centuries to come. There is no way back from such a future, except by dismantling all the global e-systems that link us increasingly together. (Extract from book The Future of Almost Everything by Futurist keynote speaker Patrick Dixon.)

Yesterday I shared a platform with a ROBOT to give a keynote (for EY / Ernst & Young) - as I do regularly....but I'm at no risk whatsoever of losing my job to the automaton.

I have worked with over 400 of the world's largest companies over the last few years, as a Futurist advisor / keynote speaker - and huge numbers of them are worried about robotics / AI / Artificial Intelligence. What does it mean for our business? Are we investing enough in Big Data analytics? How will competitors attack our markets using robotics and next-generation automation. How will Artificial Intelligence control our future?

At the same time, in the media everyday we see sensational headlines such as "Hundreds of millions of jobs will be lost to robots", suggesting that humankind will never be able to find enough work for tomorrow's people, because so many jobs will be done by machines....

I have advised hundreds of the world’s largest corporations on digital trends, and one of the biggest that CEOs and boards are now talking about is Blockchain. What is Blockchain and what does it mean for us? Could Blockchain wipe out our business, or will Blockchain help us grow? Here is a comment after my recent keynote for the global team of Generali Insurance, on Blockchain.

Blockchain means that anyone in the world with online access can prove a particular document exists, when it was sent, who it was sent to and so on. We can also prove that an event has taken place, in a way which is fully transparent to everyone who needs to know this around the world. The implications of this are going to be huge. And it will be many years before we work it all out.

Big Data is used by every large corporation, banks, governments and so on to make links between past events, and to predict future events. Billions of dollars are being spent (mostly wasted) by companies trying to spot patterns in trillions of data items. Big Data is used heavily to try to predict customer behaviour and to target marketing campaigns.

Media article for South Korea summit on ICT, telecom and digital trends. The
future is about convergence and divergence. The industry trend is for
companies, products and services to converge – but many of the most
important future innovations in ICT will be divergent: doing things
differently to serve customers better. Firstly we are seeing
accelerating convergence on a global scale eg computer software,
hardware and mobile companies (Microsoft /Nokia, Google / Motorola).
Expect rapid convergence of telcos and banking. Mobile payments are
being driven by growth in emerging markets. 70% of all mobile
payments take place in the fastest growing economies, mainly in Africa
eg m-Pesa, which now handles 33% of Kenya’s GDP. Expect a mobile-based global revolution in banking. Need a world-class digital disruption keynote speaker? Phone Patrick Dixon now or email.

Digital Convergence, Connections, Clouds, Crowds and Controls - take hold of your future - or the future will take hold of you.

IT directors face complex, rapidly changing challenges as they struggle to keep their corporations up to speed. Meanwhile, managers AND customers are making decisions of their own, moving their personal lives into the Cloud with email, photos, videos and so on. Companies are getting left behind. Summary of keynote conference presentation by Futurist speaker Patrick Dixon.

Keynote speech by Patrick Dixon on Big Data, information overload and making sense of data - and impact on health care. Companies lose 80% of customers within 10 seconds - life is too short to wait, swift and effective customer service is key.

Individuals know more than the doctors about their treatment, internet research means information overload. Overcoming institutional blindness and institutional overload. Exponential increase in unstructured data, structured data. Genetic prophecy will grow dramatically in accuracy as we match millions of human genomes with disease patterns in a global biotech Big Data project.